66.6 Hell and Back

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Taran – Half Elf Fighter/Priest of Mannanan Mac Lir, cousin to Carinne and Galvish
Carinne Rhianne Talynnart – Half Elf Ranger/Mage, Cousin to Taran and Galvish
Krachtig – An Illusory Gnome
Galvish – Half Elf Fighter/Thief, Cousin to Taran and Carinne
Barrigan Stonebeak – Dwarf Fighter/Priest, Company Engineer.
Lanneus Tuard – Paladin of Manannan Mac Lir
Saeryn Ghent – Fighter – (Kalans Sister)

2/24/13
What the Hell?

We are going through our spoils from the recent battles when we come across a deck of cards which radiate a powerful dweomer. Being thoroughly chaotic and possessing barely a shred of common sense means we are all eager to pick random cards from the deck, hearing that good things come to those bold enough to try their luck and despair to a few unlucky ones (that survive the Deck of Many things).
Barrigan is eager to draw and survives unscathed, Lanneus goes next and seems unhappy about his three draws, On Tarans second draw he completely disappears, undaunted by this Krachtig picks two cards and seems slightly puzzled but otherwise intact, Corinnes cards greatly please her and last but not least is Galvish who is transformed into a drooling idiot, his soul whisked away by some otherworldly being.
The remaining members of the party decide to use a djinni bottle to find out where there comrades body and souls have gone. A quick wish later Taran is back from his imprisonment and know that we have to take a trip to the 4th Plane of Hell to get Galvish’s soul back. Getting to that place is trickier than most priests would have you believe. Taran gets a special tuning fork made to enable him to cast a spell to get there. Krachtig casts a powerful spell to enable him to determine where in hell the soul is, during the course of questioning we get an idea that it is over 100 miles west of our anticipated arrival point before Krachtig becomes insane. A quick tap with a curing staff restores the Gnomes wits and we recruit cousin Saeryn to join us, as it is too dangerous to take the automaton that Galvish has become.
As we exit our mansion we are confronted with an illusionary being that announces himself as Ibn-Al-Haseer the Assassins Guildmaster of Ka, who had sent some minions to tackle us the previous day. We strike up a conversation and settle on procuring a cure for a plague that is affecting some villages where he has worshippers, after turning down the opportunity to attack a priest from a healing church. Some of the more dubious characters in the party where happy to take this first challenge on.
Finally we get to Hell, which is everything it’s cracked up to be. We are buffed up, invisible and quite frankly terrified, knowing that our potent magics are severely diminished in this plane.
We fold to the palace of the Demon Prince who is holding Galvish’s soul. The walls are granite with melted bones jutting out, the moat is a river of lava. This definitely seems to be the right place. Two gargoyles detach themselves from the wall and turn into winged demons to ask our business. We are told to stow our weapons if we wish an audience. We nervously comply and enter into a courtyard filled with foul beings and are bought into a great hall where the Demon Prince resides.
He is reluctant to let a fine a soul as that of our cousin go, but strikes a bargain with us. He will restore the soul of Galvish if we take down a particularly loathsome governor who worships a rival demon prince, in lands to the South of where we normally reside. We have two years to complete this mission, if we fail to accomplish this then the Demon will have all our souls. We reluctantly sign in blood and depart with our colleague. On the way back to the portal we are assailed by a number of foul demons who gate in more of their kind. Lanneus slays one creature after another while Galvish fins his swords useless on this remote plane, luckily after Corinne stumbles he grabs her swords and defends himself. We kill off these beings and get back to our own plane and commission a sage to find out everything we can to help us to complete our two missions.